


it's in your blood and it's in your making

by bibliomaniac



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: (haven't decided yet tho so don't get your hopes up lol), Additional Tags May Be Added, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Developing Relationship, M/M, Medium Burn, Mutual Pining, Rating May Change, Zagreus 'dies' at the very beginning, Zagreus was taken out of the Underworld as a baby, please check them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:15:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27662566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliomaniac/pseuds/bibliomaniac
Summary: Zagreus is not a god. He's just an orphan, abandoned at birth and left to grow up on his own, and left to die as alone as he lived. He expects that to be more or less the end of it.Except.Zagreus might not know himself as well as he thinks, and the end isn't as final as he had thought. His arrival to the Underworld brings with it strange new changes, the attention of more gods than he could ever imagine might be interested in him--one, in particular, who may even be more--and answers about his origins. From there, he'll have to decide where to go with this new afterlife and new information, and who he wants to be.((aka: zagreus was taken from the underworld when he was born and left to grow up as a 'human', and when he dies, it becomes clear that isn't quite right. also he and thanatos fall in love))
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 38
Kudos: 483





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title is taken from don't give in by snow patrol
> 
> cws for chapter 1: brief mention of historically accurate but nasty treatment of orphans (namely death by exposure, begging, and pedophilia), mention of slavery in ancient greece, isolation, brief mention of corporal punishment/abuse/bullying of a child, blood mention, major character 'death' except not really because he's like immediately a shade, war mention, mention of murder within war, parental mourning of child 'death'

He was always told the gods smiled upon him.

He knew what happened to other orphans left in the marketplace—left to die or beg, exposed to the elements and animals, exposed to those who would use them for their own purposes. He knew because the children of the master, for whom he was bought, told him as much.

Be grateful, they said. You are lucky, they said. The gods smiled upon you.

And on you even more, he sometimes thought in response, and yet you are not required to abase yourself over it.

But it was of no use to linger on. Thinking would not have changed a single thing. This was his life, and it was the only life he would ever get. He resolved to do his duty as cheerfully as possible, no matter how he longed to run free, or how his mind chafed against the tedium. With only one life, he had to make of it what he could.

He was tasked to work in the garden when he was not needed by the children, and the other slaves praised him for his hard work. To hear them tell it, the gods smiled once more. He may not have heard their private whispers, _when he is here the colors seem deeper,_ _the winter chills less harshly, the plants grow as though they ache to be near him—cursed child—_ but if he had, it would not have made much difference. He noticed this himself, anyway, though he thought it more a passing fancy. A flower a friend, a shrub a companion, and blooming all the brighter to bring a smile to his face. It was ridiculous. Childish.

The part about being a cursed child, well, that he heard all too often, whispers or not. It’s all excuses, and he knew it. Just finding patterns where patterns are wanted. Nothing to do with him.

If he had the power to cause misfortune, after all, he’d not have used it. Even when the children laughed at him, even when he was kicked or spat on or whipped, he only ever wanted to live peacefully. That’s all. He may have healed quickly, and been a bit healthier than some, but it didn’t make the injuries and illness of others his fault nor his wish.

He steals your life, they say still. He steals it and makes it his own. See how he does not cry even when he bleeds. See how he smiles instead, and gets back up.

Of course, the allegations are unsubstantiated. He does not cry because he does not want to give them the satisfaction of seeing his pain, and he smiles because it makes them think they have not won. As for why he gets up—he’s not even sure what the alternative would be. Death?

Death is not for him.

It’s ironic that he’s saying this, of course, bleeding out on a patch of grass that seems to be spreading along with the red of his blood ( _ridiculous, childish)_ and sprouting flowers. Blood-red poppies, if his blurry vision serves ( _a flower a friend),_ that almost feel like they’re building a gentle bed for him in his last moments.

It’s silly, of course. That’s the realm of gods, and a god he is not. If he were a god, he would not have been sold as a plaything to wealthy citizens in the first place, and they would not have been able to tell him to fight and he need to obey, and he would not have needed to learn to kill to survive, and he would not have cried when he succeeded. If he were a god, he would not have killed so many— _clearly the gods smile on you, child—_ that he was put in a small elite group, which would not have been caught unawares by a surprise attack on their camp, and he would not have been the only one with injuries severe enough to ruin him, and they would not have abandoned him to his fate, and he would not be here right now hallucinating his blood as poppies.

And while this might verge on blasphemy, here at the end, he’ll venture another hypothetical: if the gods smiled on him, truly, he might be alive now, god or not.

He’s known this all along, really. Gods are mighty and powerful, but that doesn’t mean they know _him,_ or care about him at all.

So what does he care of gods. Zagreus smiles on himself, and does not get back up again.

* * *

When Thanatos arrives to pick up the soul his mother had asked he reap with such urgency, he’s not certain what to expect. It’s an unusual request in the first place; violent deaths are not his domain, and it’s on the battlefield to boot, which means he’ll need to explain things to Ares later. But she had said if he needed to think of it as a favor to her that would be fine, and that the situation would explain itself in time, and she just didn’t think his sisters had the delicate touch needed to do this job as it should be done.

He’d have accepted just as soon as she asked, of course. Mother Nyx is his family. He owes her far more than a single pickup request, and cares for her and her peace of mind far more than he’s willing to let on. But he’ll admit as well that in going on, she’s roused his curiosity. He can’t think of circumstances that would require a ‘delicate touch’ in the midst of battle. A particularly flighty warrior? A pacifist caught in crossfire? A tetchy hero, perhaps?

Whatever he was anticipating, or not-anticipating, the soul with a shock of black hair and bright green eyes sitting calmly next to his body, lain with care in a field of poppies, would not be it.

Bells have announced his arrival, as usual, but for a moment Thanatos finds himself unable to announce the same in words, taken aback as he is by the scene.

The soul looks up at him, stands, and smiles. “Hello,” he says. “I imagine you’ve come to take me.”

Thanatos is rarely spoken to with so little deference by the souls he comes for. “Do you know who I am?” he asks, even more thrown off beat.

The soul shrugs. “No, not as such. But I figured, being dead, limited circumstances would allow someone to see me. Or for that matter to appear out of nothing.”

Thanatos swallows. He needs to regain his composure. Summoning all the regality in him, he says, “I am Thanatos, God of Death.”

Recognition lights those bright eyes. “Oh, are you?”

Thanatos flounders. He’s never had someone ask for confirmation before. They can generally tell. “Yes.”

“I see.” The soul considers. “I suppose I’m being quite rude, then. I can prostrate myself, if you would like.”

Thanatos would think him arrogant if the calm smile still on his face didn’t speak instead of an odd sort of apathy. He _is_ flippant, though, either way, and Thanatos is uncertain of how to react. “That will not be necessary,” he says, finally. “Who are you, may I ask?”

“I didn’t introduce myself? I _have_ been rude indeed,” the soul muses. “I’m Zagreus.”

Thanatos nods, once, growing ever more confused. He’s never heard of anybody of note by that name. “Is there,” he hazards in one last effort, “Any reason I might know of you?”

Zagreus’ smile widens as if in response to some personal joke. “No, I really don’t believe so.”

Silence hangs between them while Thanatos tries to understand, then gives up, in the interest of time if nothing else. “Ah. Well, then, if you would take my hand a moment.”

Even if he doesn’t know why his mother had asked for this, still, he would be remiss if he didn’t complete the job properly and escort him to Charon’s ferry himself. Zagreus hesitantly takes a step forward and places his hand gently atop Thanatos’ own.

It’s warm, he thinks with a frown. Odd.

In a flash of green light, they disappear from the field.

(—Which means they don’t see it. A mass of greenery emerges from the ground, and from it walks out a hooded figure, who drops to their knees next to the body and begins to weep.

Their tears sprout new flowers all around the body of Zagreus, roses and crocus and violet and dwarf iris and lilies and larkspur and—then, as his body is encased in the same greenery as the figure and sinks under the ground, asphodel and amarantos together.

Death, and the unfading.

Her son does not see it, but the goddess Persephone mourns for him, who she could not protect to the very end.

It is long after the sun sets before she rouses herself and disappears once more, leaving only the field behind: a sea of poppies in a desert, and in the center, the flowers marking where a god died, and came to live once more.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did the best research i could (do in an hour or so on google) about what the treatment of orphans was like in ancient greece. eventually i was so bummed out that i just gave up on being perfectly accurate and made it, idk, how i wanted it to be. (since another commenter brought this up) part of what i wanted it to be is no sexual abuse, so...he was in really shitty circumstances for sure but that was not one of them! i could never do that to a character. anyway, orphans, uhhhhh did not do so well back then! fuck that!
> 
> i'm very excited for this au which is why i'm publishing this now BUT updates will be limited to none until i finish my other open fic, because i'm trying to be responsible for once. i have a trail of unfinished fics behind me that i don't want to add to lol. but hopefully i will be able to work on (and...finish...i hope) this one soon, though updates will likely be much slower than on the previous as a general rule bc im slowly running out of ~mojo~ or w/e and because writing non-modern speech is...hard for me :') ANYWAY LONG EXCUSES SHORT i will do my best!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cws for this chapter: unsanitary warning, talk about eternity, mention about those left behind by death...i don't really think there's much here, as ever let me know if i've missed something and i'll add it in!

The other souls recognize him immediately. Perhaps not by name, likely not by appearance, but there’s something of the chthonic gods that leave mortals unsettled, shivering, averting their eyes. Death may not be their enemy, but they know by instinct that he is not their friend.

The strange soul stands in stark contrast to them all. He is right by Thanatos’ side, where he ought to be most uncomfortable. Instead, he looks only calm. Curious, true, with his gaze roving all over the cavern, but calm. If there is anything to be said, it is that his toes are tapping slightly against the ground, silent and almost unnoticeable to someone lacking Thanatos’ keen eye.

Thanatos isn’t entirely certain why he’s still here. He’s busy, and his mother’s request hadn’t included him walking this Zagreus up to the edge of Charon’s skiff like a child in need of a custodian. But he’s curious as well, both about the request and the shade.

“Have you somewhere to be?” Thanatos asks. He was quiet in the asking, but in this place where the only sounds are the clink of obols being exchanged, his brother’s groaning, and the inexorable passing of the River Styx, it sounds like a shout.

Zagreus looks almost amused by that, but he has some small store of decency that allows him to arrange his expression back to normal when Thanatos narrows his eyes. “Nowhere but here, at the moment. To my knowledge. I suppose you might know better than me.”

If it were another god listening to the shade, Thanatos thinks they might punish him for his cheek. As it stands, Thanatos doesn’t really want to deal with the fuss. He avoids the jab entirely, questioning, “So why are you tapping your toes with such impatience?”

Zagreus looks even more amused this time. Thanatos reconsiders the punishment, even moreso when Zagreus says, “Question for a question. Why were you looking at my toes so long as to form an opinion on their mood?”

“They happened to be on the ground,” Thanatos bites out.

“True,” Zagreus says, glancing down at them idly. “Is that why you hover in the air? So that people don’t look at your toes and inquire as to their well-being?”

Thanatos’ mood darkens quickly, and so tangibly that the shades in line all cower from him. “You are insolent,” he says lowly. “Think more before you speak. Not all will be as merciful as me.”

Zagreus is quiet a moment, blessedly, then nods, his head bowed slightly. “You’re correct. My apologies. There was something in you that felt so familiar that I treated you as though I might a friend.”

Thanatos is taken aback by the sudden sincerity. He falters. “Do your friends enjoy such jokes?”

When he looks again, Zagreus’ ever-present smile is still there, but it has an air of falsity. “I would not know,” he says, artificially light.

Because he does not laugh with them, or because he has not had friends to laugh with?

Thanatos suspects he knows the answer without asking. It’s not his place to care, though. They are not close in any wise.

The line continues with their silence, and despite this being the natural state of things, it feels somehow louder than usual.

When they reach Charon, Thanatos almost expects there to be trouble with payment, but Zagreus pulls an obol out from under his tongue. “Good idea to put it in while I could still move, hm? Figured I probably wouldn’t get any kind of honorable burial.” He talks just as amiably to Charon as he did to Thanatos, like they’re just two people chatting in the street rather than deity and mortal. “Here you are.”

Charon expels some smoke and a groan. Thanatos can interpret it—they are made of the same stuff, after all, born of the same parents—but the shades cannot.

Zagreus, though, grins. “Ah, you’re right, I should have wiped it off first. My sincerest apologies. Bit unhygienic, there.” He wipes it on his chiton, and presents it once more. “The color of your smoke is lovely, by the way. You don’t see such rich purple too often, above.”

Charon had not said anything about the obol’s hygiene. He had asked Thanatos whether he had, too, received a request from their mother.

Now, though, he’s looking straight at the shade, head cocked to the side appraisingly. He grunts.

Thanatos scoffs. “Ludicrous. It’s only empty flattery.”

He realizes too late that he should not have said anything, for Zagreus’ grin grows ever wider. “Was he flattered then?” He redirects the question with the slightest flash of narrowed eyes. “Were you, rather? I don’t give empty compliments, I assure you. Though I suppose you have no particular basis to believe in any assurances.”

Thanatos ignores him, as best he can, and says, “To your original question, yes. I was asked to take him here. And you?”

“Take _me_ here? Who?” Zagreus asks from the side.

Charon ignores him, too, far more naturally. He doesn’t usually speak with shades no matter how much they attempt to negotiate with him. Another plume of smoke, another groan.

Thanatos’ eyes widen, and his lips part. He turns and gazes intensely at Zagreus. Him? Why _him?_ For their mother to ask for Charon to bypass the census-taking in the House and take him straight to Elysium— _him,_ who claimed himself to not be of any note…

That’s past just asking for Death to personally deliver a soul to Charon.

That’s _treason._

Zagreus finally looks troubled under the eyes of death, as he should have from the start. “May I ask if I did something wrong?” he inquires. His toes dig into the ground. “Does he desire an apology as well?”

Thanatos doesn’t answer. He’s not certain he can speak right now without his voice trembling, and that would not be appropriate. He takes one last look at Zagreus, then turns around sharply and disappears.

He may still have work to do, but right now, he has to speak to his mother.

* * *

Zagreus looks at the place where the god once stood a while, then sighs. “I think he may rather dislike me.” It’s not as though he doesn’t understand. He was rude, in his nervousness, and used humor as a shield in a situation that demanded solemnity. He turns back to the boatman. “If I have similarly offended you, I am sorry.”

The boatman cocks his head at him again, then waves his hand. But then, instead of letting him on the boat—he points back to the shore.

Zagreus takes a step back as if the boatman had shoved him with all force instead. “I can’t…go? Do I need more coin?”

The boatman shakes his head.

“Is it because I spoke to you too personally? I really am very sorry—”

He shakes his head again. There’s something to his skeletal face that looks almost frustrated. He points again, then presses a finger to his lips.

Zagreus doesn’t understand what that means, precisely. But he does understand that in his death, as in his life, it seems things can never go easily for him.

He doesn’t argue. How can he argue with a god? Perhaps later, he can try again—though Charon has taken his obol, so will he then be consigned to wander the shores of the Styx for one hundred years, as the stories say? Dark thoughts swelling in his mind, he trudges back off the dock and to the shore, to a secluded corner of the cavern. The eyes of the other shades in line feels like a physical weight on his skin, sticky and repulsive.

He feels almost like crying. His life is one thing, nothing but a speck on a thread in the tapestry of existence, but death—death is an _eternity._ He simply cannot spend eternity wandering, with nothing to do and no-one to speak to. It will drive him mad.

But he refuses to cry. Even if his pride is meaningless now, he refuses to let them have the satisfaction. The shades, the gods—they _will_ not see him broken. Not for now, anyway.

He smiles, though it’s shaken, and wonders if perhaps the shades now think he’s mad regardless.

He spends the time once more looking around the cavern, then at the shades as they slowly diminish in number with each trip on the ferry. He thinks of stories for each of them, and for the people they left behind.

That just makes him think of how thoroughly he will not be missed aboveground, though, so that doesn’t really help his mood.

When he’s lost interest in those things, he gets up and goes back to the shore, sits down by the Styx and stares into it. Its blood-red waters run relentless down to where he apparently cannot follow. He pokes a curious finger in it, stirs hypnotic circles, writes his name, then just leaves it adrift. He daydreams of jumping into it, falling down, down—and as he does, he feels an odd sort of—pull—

A hand on his shoulder wakes him fully, and he jolts and looks behind him.

It’s the boatman, Charon, again with his finger over his mouth.

When he looks dazedly around him, he notices that there are no shades left, or at least only the ones who are consigned to roam the shores of the Styx. He may not still fully understand what the boatman means, but he certainly gets what it means to be pulled by the hand into the ferry, and for Charon to then set the ferry adrift.

So…so. So he is allowed to cross. So he won’t be left in that cavern forever.

So he can cross, but only alone?

More questions burst in him, and he thinks all of a sudden—Thanatos had said that he was asked to take him here. And that Charon, perhaps, had been asked to do something as well. To take him alone, maybe? But who would ask that of them? And why?

And of all things, why _him?_

The boatman rows steadily, long strokes in a well-practiced rhythm. He looks ahead, and he does not provide any answers.

Slowly, Zagreus starts to tap his feet against the floor of the skiff, just lightly. He’s always done this. An itch starts to build up in his feet when he’s standing still. An itch to run, to move, to be somewhere else. A heat, almost, a heat that rises up, to his heart, to his head, and whispers, you should not be here—

There’s a strange feeling he’s had, ever since arriving in the underworld. And it’s strange, because he’s dead and the nature of living beings is to _live,_ but—there’s something, something that whispers alongside the heat, some aching kind of familiarity, that says that where he should be is still not here, but that it’s close.

Very, very close.

Zagreus looks back into the Styx and thinks. He may not have been allowed an education, but he’s far from stupid. He knows there’s a mystery here, for whatever reason, and if he will not be provided answers…well. He’s never been provided anything in his life. And if his death is going to be more of the same?

He’ll just have to find those answers on his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woof so sorry this took so long! i know i said i'd be giving priority to my other fic but i was planning on writing sooner buuuut i had duties that took up my hand energy, and when i had hand energy i was givin' it to the other fic, so. sorry there. 
> 
> i am also sorry that, uh--i'm tryin to write all ~fancy~ to match the time period, ish, so there are probably some sentence structures and word choices that will seem strange? and are strange? i'm hoping that doesn't make it difficult to read or anything, but if it does i apologize. you can always let me know if theres something youre not sure about and ill try to explain!
> 
> also also. on my other fic i decided at the start to respond to every comment! i do that for some fics. but its usually kind of an all or nothing thing, bc otherwise i feel guilty? and with that said, i dont think i have the hand energy for responding to all the comments on two fics right now;; ill always answer if theres a question of some kind, or try to, but at least while the other fic is open, i think i wont respond to every comment on this fic. ill reevaluate when im done with the other one. that said! i read every comment as theyre coming in and im so so grateful for all of them, and glad that there are a lot of kind people intrigued by this concept! hopefully i can match up to that interest and, idk. Write Good. :P thank you to everybody who's written a comment, you're all gems. 
> 
> AND LAST NOTE this will also still be low update speed until i finish the other fic! thank you so much for your patience on that, even if it's irritating. again i appreciate you all! thank you!

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading this! if you'd like to drop by my twitter (for some-ass reason) i'm at [@boringbibs](https://twitter.com/boringbibs), and i also have a tumblr i don't use as often at [anuninterestingperson](https://anuninterestingperson.tumblr.com).


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